The Power of the Mother Wound

Dan has been the Executive Director of Reconciliation Ministries since 2003, and is a Licensed Professional Counselor in the State of Michigan. He grew up with a paranoid schizophrenic mother, and has written articles about the mother wound in the past. Although this article talks about the mother wound, it is equally applicable for the father wound. For more information, you can read Overcoming the Mother Wound and When My Mother and Father Forsake Me in the archives section of the Reconciliation Ministries website at http://www.recmin.org/newsletter-archives/.

“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!”
God in Isaiah 49:15 NIV

I remember hearing a song based on Isaiah 49 many years ago. I could feel some anger rising up in my heart as I heard the first sentence, “Can a woman forget her child, and have not compassion on the son of her womb?” I found myself thinking, “Of course a mother can have no compassion on her baby! My mother was able to have no compassion on me when she abused me!” I was actually relieved to hear the next sentence. God, Himself, was acknowledging that sometimes earthly mothers really do forget their kids, or treat them harshly. It brought peace to my heart as I heard Him promise that He will not forget us, and that He will have compassion on us. Verse 16 goes on to say, “See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.” It’s hard to forget someone that you have permanently engraved on the palms of your hands.

That moment actually came a few years into my healing journey. I couldn’t have experienced God’s heart in those verses in my early days. Of course, I had “head knowledge” that God loves us and is always there for us no matter what our earthly parents were like, but it didn’t translate into every day, experiential “heart knowledge”. I couldn’t live in the reality that God was safe and that He loved me deeply. I didn’t really want to let Him get close to the fortified, self-protective areas of my heart. Mother wounds can cause us to lock up parts of our hearts deep. So deep we think that even God can’t get to them. We even try to stay far away from those parts of our own hearts. Mother wounds are powerful!

We can see just how powerful the mother wound can be in the account of a vengeful mother named Herodias, her daughter, and the daughter’s step-father, Herod. By the way, Herodias was first married to Herod’s brother, Philip. Herod and Herodias were living in adultery. You get the picture – it’s a pretty messed up, blended family. You can read the account in Mark, Chapter Six. John the Baptist rebuked Herod for marrying his sister-in-law. She got angry and wanted to kill John, but Herod had an interesting relationship with John. He felt bad when John rebuked him for living in sin, but he realized that John was a holy man and protected him. It says that he liked listening to John. Interesting… Herod didn’t like being called out for his sin, but couldn’t shake his interest in hearing what John had to say. Seems he was torn between embracing the truth and holding onto his sin.

Herodias remained bitter and finally seized her opportunity to “get even” with John. Herod threw himself a big birthday party and invited a bunch of government big shots. His step-daughter did a beautiful dance. So beautiful, that Herod offered to give her anything she requested, up to half his kingdom. This is where we see the unbelievable power of the mother wound come into effect. I don’t know about you, but if someone were to offer me half his kingdom, I think I’d be going after the expensive stuff. Instead, the girl went to her mother and asked Mom what she should ask for. The mother – who could have made sure her daughter was set for life – tells her to ask for the head of John the Baptist. The girl follows Mom’s instructions. Really?!! She could have had riches beyond belief, and the girl chose to get some guy’s head on a platter? That’s the power of the mother wound. The void is so deep, that it can motivate us to do things that defy logic and common sense to try to get a place in our mother’s heart. Mother wounds hurt and we’re desperate to make the pain go away.

Andrew Comiskey, author of Living Waters: Pursuing Sexual and Relational Wholeness in Christ, likens the mother wound to having a heart like a strainer, no matter how much love is poured in, there’s no capacity to retain in. No level of compromise will ever fulfill the deep pit in our hearts. I can’t imagine what the girl must have been thinking a few days down the road after her vengeful mother’s delight wore off. Was she full of regret as she was thinking about all the riches she sacrificed for a few moments of grasping for her mother’s approval? Compromise doesn’t fill the void. Compromise deepens the void. Always. Yes, always.

I doubt that any of us will ever be stuck in the position of choosing between compromising in a vain attempt to gain our broken parent’s approval and gaining half a kingdom. Sometimes compromise with a parent brings worldly riches our way. Sometimes compromise merely brings us temporary approval. In the end, we find the riches are hollow and our parent’s haven’t really changed. A broken parent’s attention can be pretty fleeting. It is never worth compromising our Biblical convictions to gain our broken parent’s approval. We are living for eternity. Only deepening our relationship with our eternal Father can fill up any voids in our hearts.

Mother wounds have other consequences. Shame is a big one. Codependency is another. They seem to feed off of each other – compromise, codependency, and shame. Sometimes the condemnation is so great that it keeps us from embracing our Heavenly Father’s precious promises in Isaiah 49 and Psalm 27:10, “Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.” We might even tell others that the Lord loves them and will embrace them, but deep in our hearts we fully expect Him to reject us. After all… Mom did…

Don’t let anything keep you from your Heavenly Father. The truth is that Jesus Christ allowed wicked, evil men to torture and murder Him to pay for our sins. He sacrificed His life for sin stained, messy people like us; so that through His resurrection, we can experience redemption and transformation. We can see Jesus’ heart towards pretty nasty people in Luke, Chapter Seven. Here Jesus was having dinner at Simon the Pharisee’s house. Today, many of us might figure that Bible school students or pastors must be pretty holy and special since they’re Bible school students or pastors. In our hearts it’s easy to feel like Jesus would rather hang out with them than us since we’ve done some pretty awful things. In the middle of dinner at the Pharisee’s house, a sinful woman with a bad reputation came in and started anointing Jesus’ feet with some expensive perfume. Something about Jesus broke her. She wept and wiped his feet with her hair. Jesus loved her, honored her, and accepted her. This bothered the religious guy who made some wisecrack about Jesus’ supposed inability to recognize what a scuzzy woman she was. Jesus heard the comment and corrected the religious guy. Then He turned to the woman, acknowledged her love in a holy way, and told her that her sins were forgiven. He even acknowledged that she had sinned much, but that she was forgiven anyway. No matter how much we have sinned – the amount of our sin is really irrelevant because we’re all pretty disgusting in our fallen state – Jesus will always receive us as we turn to Him for help. By the way, Jesus also received the religious guy and seemed to acknowledge that his sins weren’t as bad as hers on a human scale. This just reemphasizes that horrific sin doesn’t disqualify a repentant person from receiving God’s love. Jesus said whoever is forgiven much will love much.

As we turn to the Lord and receive His forgiveness, He gives us the ability to love. As we love Him, He transforms the deep recesses of our hearts and becomes the mother – and father – we have always longed for. He truly does take us up when our mother and father have forsaken us.

Photos courtesy of Jordan Whitt and Ben White via www.unsplash.com.

© 2018 Reconciliation Ministries of Michigan, Inc. This article may be reproduced and distributed as long as no fee is charged and credit is given.

Lives Are Changed through the Living Waters Program.

Living Waters is a Christ-centered discipleship/ministry program for men and women seeking healing in areas of sexual and relational brokenness; including pornography addiction, codependency, sexual addiction, homosexuality, sexual ambivalence, childhood sexual abuse, transgender issues, and difficulty in establishing and sustaining healthy relationships.  Our next program is starting soon.

Here are some powerful testimonies from participants who had their lives changed through the power of Jesus Christ in the Living Waters program. They are used with the permission of the participants.

“Living Waters saved my life,
my marriage, and my soul.”

“Through Living Waters I discovered more of who I am in Christ, so that I would choose to live for Him and not my flesh. I am free.”

 

 “I came to Living Waters hoping it would ‘fix me’. What I found was not what I was looking for, but what I needed… and that was hope. It has been a tough, but rewarding 24 weeks.”

 

When I came to Living Waters, I was at the end of my rope. I had resolved to divorce my wife and embrace a gay lifestyle – and a fringe lifestyle even within that. I was going to try to be a good father to my three kids, and financially support my wife, but I was going to leave God and my marriage.

I was unhopeful that Living Waters would “help”. I’d been in similar ministries, and was still deep in sin. But the Lord met me. Through meeting with other men with similar and related struggles, engaging in brutally honest accountability, and in particular praying with, anointing, and laying hands on one another, the Lord met me, revealed new truths about Him, me and our relationship.

I am still struggling with strong desires. But my behaviors are more under control. I see in vivid detail that the path I almost took would have led to death and destruction, while God offers life and healing. I still have a long road ahead, but trust Him to deliver and restore me.

A male participant.

I came to Living Waters saved but broken. I was struggling to overcome lusts of the flesh and entertaining a toxic relationship while battle a cancer diagnosis. The Lord began speaking to me regarding the sickness and disease. Exodus 15:26. Every week during Living Waters the Lord reiterated that I am a child of God. How much I am loved and cared for by Him. Along with being set free from the bondage I was in, I was also healed of a stage four cancer diagnosis!!! I thank God for all that He is doing.

A female participant.

I came to Living Waters seeking deeper healing from God. He had already done so much healing and revealing truth that was so hidden and buried deep beneath the ground. But I wanted to go right down into the core of my inner being in the depths of God’s healing hand. He has done that and so much more. I have never felt the Love of God and other’s hearts shining that love as I did here. The heart of the Spirit truly was flooded through the atmosphere. The greatest healing I received from the Lord was in our small group when I just spoke straight from the heart of different times of sexual abuse/assault from a dark past. The group leader wept with me as I took her hand and spoke the pain into the cross where Jesus bore it all and took it upon Himself. We waited silently as Jesus spoke so gently ending with, “I have loved you with an everlasting love.” I am no longer fearful of men from the devastation that led to living a past life of homosexuality. My past is gone – washed by the precious blood of Jesus.

A female participant.

 

I came to Living Waters broken and in despair. I had been living a double life with anonymous sexual encounters with men. I am married with a beautiful family and have gotten infected with HIV. It has been an incredible struggle dealing with this. I have been faithful since my diagnosis, and have experienced deep healing and deliverance. I have come a long way on my journey. My marriage is stronger than ever. God has been so amazing to me. Living Waters has been a big part of my recovery and healing process.

A male participant.

 

Through Living Waters I found that I had many characteristics that I needed to change. This has opened my eyes and heart to see myself through His eyes. I am ever grateful for Living Waters.

A female participant.

 “I now have more peace than ever before.”

If you or someone you love is struggling with
sexual or relational difficulties, there is
hope and healing through the power of
Jesus Christ.  Call us and ask about attending
the next Living Waters program. (586) 739-5114

 

The pictures used in this article are not the actual participants. Photos acquired through www.unsplash.com.

© Reconciliation Ministries 2018.  This article may be reproduced and distributed as long as credit is given and no fee is charged.

Considering Your Life on the Mat? - Dan Hitz

Dan has been the Executive Director of Reconciliation Ministries since 2003, and is a Licensed Professional Counselor in the State of Michigan. You can read testimonies and helpful articles on recovery on the archives section of the Reconciliation Ministries website by clicking here.

I knew that growing up with a sexually abusive, paranoid schizophrenic mother would leave me with a lot of deep emotional wounds, but little did I know until years after giving my heart back to Jesus Christ as a 22-year old man how deep those wounds actually were. During the abuse, and my mom’s progressively deeper plunges into mental illness, I became an expert at turning off my emotions. Emotions hurt. Who wants to feel pain?

My excuse for not letting myself deal with the pain after I became a Christian was that I was a new creation in Christ, and the old stuff had supposedly passed away (2 Corinthians 5:17). I used that verse to convince myself that I didn’t have to deal with the issues of the past anymore. The problem is that I was taking that Scripture totally out of context. It wasn’t addressing emotional brokenness. It was addressing the beautiful gift of justification that we are given when we accept Jesus as our Savior. Instantly, we are declared to have His righteousness. That part is a done deal through divine decree. Another one of my “favorite” Scriptures to throw back at the Lord when He was convicting me to deal with my emotional pain was Philippians 3:13. Paul wrote about “forgetting” what was in the past, and “straining” (NIV) toward what is ahead. Never mind that Paul was actually explaining that he didn’t base his personal value on his past accomplishments, I used that verse to give myself a “Scriptural” basis to keep trying to shut off my emotions. God wasn’t buying it. It wasn’t working. I kept trying. Strangely, we who live on a mat like the guy at the pool of Bethesda are good at “straining”.

Anyone who has ever tried stuffing their emotions and then been forced to take an honest look at their own heart, can guess how this went. Stuffing our emotions seems to work for a little while. Maybe even a long while. But then the emotional carnage catches up to us. Not just us, but those around us. Our brokenness seems to spread to those we care about the most. After a few years… a few decades… of stuffing our emotions, we lose the strength to suppress them any longer and we unravel. That’s what happened to me in my late thirties. I unraveled.

I was a lot like the guy at the pool of Bethesda in John, Chapter Five. “5 One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, ‘Would you like to get well?’” My first response to that question is, “Really?!! The poor guy has been lying there handicapped for 38 years and You have the audacity to ask him if he wants to be made well?” Now that I’ve walked this healing journey for many years, I have a better understanding of that question. Jesus was really asking him, “Are you willing to let Me work in your heart however I want to work in your heart to heal your brokenness?” There’s a big difference in those questions. Answering the second question affirmatively also means surrendering one powerful thing – control. Abuse survivors are not particularly good at surrendering control. We didn’t have any for so many years. In our hearts we seem to be thinking, “Now… Jesus… You’re asking me to give up the tiny amount of control that I’ve managed to grab on to?”  Jesus’ response might as well be the words of a popular daytime TV show host, “How’s that working for you?” Sooner, rather than later, I hope all of us take the risk to answer the, “How’s that working for you?” question truthfully. The answer is, “Not very well.”

It would be similar to having a long-term physical disability in the US, and Jesus asking us if we want to be made well. Our minds might start to process the cost. Sure things are tough here on this mat, but I do get a monthly disability check and a Bridge card. My housing is paid for and I do have people taking care of me. If I get better, I’ll lose my public assistance and I’ll have to take care of myself. I’ll have to get a job. I’ll have to start paying my own bills, and cooking my own food. I’m not really sure I can take care of myself. (I want to be sensitive and acknowledge that there are many people who are on public assistance with legitimate needs. I’m not disparaging them in any way. I’m just trying to highlight the vulnerability and risk that Jesus was asking the man to exercise. If you or someone you care about is on public assistance, please be at peace.)

The man’s doubts start surfacing in the next verse. “‘I can’t sir,’ the man said, ‘for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me.’” (5:8) This shows the man was still looking for another human to put him into the pool, rather than looking directly to Jesus to heal him. It also shows that the man on the mat was very much aware that others were experiencing healing miracles. But not him. He’s still on his mat. For 38 years. Other people seem to catch the healing breaks. Somehow we use that as evidence that we’ll never get better. We use that pain to motivate ourselves to not even try. Trying is scary. What if we succeed? No more disability checks. No more Bridge card. We will have to start doing things for ourselves. That is frightening. Sometimes it seems easier not to even try.

I’ve read these passages many times, but just recently noticed another facet of this account that I hadn’t noticed before. It comes out in verse eight and we see the results in verse nine. “8 Jesus told him, ‘Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!’ 9 Instantly, the man was healed! He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking!” Obviously, Jesus is the healer and the man would not have walked unless he was supernaturally healed, but the thing that hadn’t registered before was that Jesus gave him specific instructions – commands – to receive his healing, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!”

Following those commands takes trust. Trust takes vulnerability. It can be terrifying to trust God. In the back of our minds, we might be thinking, “But where were You back when I was being abused?” or “Why are You just now telling me to get off my mat after all these years?” Those are questions that we can talk to the Lord about in due time. He actually has answers for them. If He told us right now we might not understand – or like – the answer, but as we continue in our healing so many things begin to make sense.

Other stumbling blocks to getting off our mats include the fear that we’re so messed up that God might not be able to work through us, or we’ll screw it up somehow. Sometimes we’re actually afraid that He might heal us and then we’ll crash because He’ll want us to do things that we haven’t been able to do. We don’t actually believe that He’ll continue to equip us for life off the mat. Sometimes we’re afraid to even hope that He might heal us because He might not really come through and we’ll be even more hopeless than before.

Ultimately, Jesus asks all of us, “Do you want to be made well? Are you willing to trust me and be vulnerable to let Me heal you My way?” I pray that all of us answer that question with a yes. It may be a scared, shaky yes; but a scared, shaky yes is all He asks. It is worth it. As we trust Him, He will give us the ability to “Stand up, pick up our mat, and walk.”

As we begin to experience life off the mat, we begin to learn more about God’s heart as a redemptive, loving Father. We did experience a measure of His grace while we were living on our mat, but He has so much more for us as we step off the mat. We begin to understand how deeply He always has loved us – even in the worst moments of our lives – as He continues to restore the broken areas of our hearts. We also begin to experience the strength and abilities that Jesus died on the cross to provide for us. As we open our hearts to Him and roll up our mat, we see that He truly does work out everything – the joys and the sorrows – for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28).

Photos courtesy of www.unsplash.com. © 2018 Reconciliation Ministries of Michigan, Inc. This article may be reproduced and distributed as long as no fee is charged and credit is given.

Redeemed from the Depths of Despair

The author of this article has been a valued member of our Living Waters leadership team for many years. Some of the minor details of this testimony have been changed to protect the privacy of the author and his family. The author’s journey shows that no one is beyond the reach of our merciful Savior. He can redeem and restore anyone with a repentant heart.

It's been about 7 years since what I call my "mouth shut" epiphany – 3 1/3 of those were spent in prison. 

The emotional trauma of losing my wife and children, family and friends, my job, my money and possessions, my reputation and finally my freedom brought me to see that I had failed at the very purpose of my life: knowing God, seeking Him and not just His benefits. Serving Him. Doing His Will and not my own.

My crime was molesting my oldest daughter. My addiction after that was pornography. I had grown up in the church, in a good family that blessed me. What began for me as stupid, evil, selfish choices became inescapable bondages.  

I was at the lowest point of my life, and when I later read the words of Ezekiel, they could have prophesied of me what he wrote to Israel in 6:9 “Then when they are exiled among the nations, they will remember me, for I will take away their adulterous hearts – their love of idols – and I will blind their lecherous eyes that long for other gods. Then at last they will loathe themselves for all this wickedness.”

It was utterly clear that I deserved no mercy from God or anyone else – I felt like a man standing before the throne of judgment. My mouth was finally shut: I no longer blamed my wife (at least not consciously), or my stress, or any other thing in my life. I could accept death for what I had done, but I could not bear to live in the darkness of my addiction and ignorance and narcissism any longer.

Somewhere in that time of self-loathing, waiting and wishing for the fire of God's judgment to fall on me, He shattered my expectations with an overwhelming and tangible experience of love. I could not fathom how anyone, and especially God who knew me fully, could love me. There are no words to express it: I felt the presence of something that could only be God. I knew that He loved me, and that in those minutes or hours (I'm not sure how long it was) – I was completely wrecked for the world. I felt like the Gadarene demoniac who found himself clothed and in his right mind, but with nowhere to go and only wanting to follow Jesus. 

It was literally weeks before I realized that I had been supernaturally freed from my addiction to porn – I was so consumed in seeking Him and reading the Word and listening to teachings I had downloaded. The Bible that I had read all my life – the book that had been about as inspiring as a phone book in my daily readings – now spoke to me from every page and every verse. 

The sexual perversion and compulsive addiction that had once held me like a shackled prisoner now repulsed me like a steaming bowl of vomit. I have never returned to those addictions, despite the fact that I now work daily with unfiltered internet access – whom the Son sets free is free indeed! 

I began to know that I was forgiven, and truly set free, but I still faced charges and could not see how I could be of any use to God after all this was through. One night, I sensed during prayer to stop asking God to deliver me from prison – I knew that I would have to go there although my lawyer was still negotiating the plea agreement. As I resigned myself to what I believed was the Holy Spirit’s prompting, I experienced for the second time an overwhelming and tangible presence – God's peace – as I accepted His will going forward. 

I won't say that I changed quickly – God has had massive reconstruction to do in me. I felt like Jeremiah’s clay pot that was smashed before slowly being rebuilt. There wasn’t anything usable of the man I had become. Prison was the hands God used to break me down, to build me up, to re-form me according to His plan, and to make me completely dependent on Him. I had many, many hours a day to study His word and to be transformed by the renewing of my mind. 

In that valley of the shadow of death – and men did die there – God also delivered me from every fear and continued to show me love and deliverance daily. I prospered in body and soul. As a result, I have a strong revelation of how Romans 8:28 works – all things really do work together for good for us who love God, and who are called according to His purpose.

One of the hard things for me to confess now is how far I still have to go. That's a common Christian expression of often false humility, but in my case it's a revelation that hurts. Coming out of prison, I wanted to be a "fixed guy" and a super-Christian and a good person again. For many people, and much of society, I can't be any of those things – I'm a lifetime registered Tier 3 sex offender. But I already know that with God NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE and my life is not my own. This gives me hope for my daughter, Sarah [not her real name] who was also my victim. 

When I first gave this testimony, I had not seen or heard from any of my children since the day of my sentencing in court. I knew that she was immersed in my old addictions and many more, and I couldn't think of her without feeling a knife in my chest. I asked many of my Living Waters friends to pray, and I know that you did because of what happened next. A few months ago I saw Sarah again, in a restaurant where we met for dinner – it was the first of many more meals and visits. Sarah is an adult now, and despite deeply painful life experiences, she has been inexplicably forgiving toward me. Our relationship is healing, and both of us are grateful for a new father-daughter relationship – but no one more than me.

As still further evidence of God’s excessive grace, He has allowed me to participate in Sarah’s recovery from homelessness to a steady job and her own apartment. Her hardships would crush me if I did not know that God is working in and for her even though she currently rejects Him. Because of God’s love for me, I am convinced that there is no one He does not love – no one He cannot save, heal, and transform.  

I pray that my story is not a stumbling block for some of you who have been hurt by people like me, and that God will continue his work in each of you to heal all those wounds of life. If you haven't yet experienced the transforming power of God’s love – that’s what I am praying you'll know, and then all of His perfect healing will follow. 

And if you were abused or misused by your father and never heard these words from him, please hear them from me: I am sorry we failed you. Your heavenly Father will not.

© 2018 Reconciliation Ministries of Michigan, Inc. This article may be reproduced and distributed as long as no fee is charged and credit is given. Photos used under license with www.shutterstock.com.

Afraid of God? Lessons from the Cats...

This article was written by Dan Hitz, Executive Director of Reconciliation Ministries, a member ministry of Restored Hope Network. Dan is a sexual abuse survivor and began his own journey out of homosexuality in 1984. He has served as ministry director since 2003. You can find more articles on sexual abuse recovery in the archives section of our website at www.recmin.org. Special thanks to Dan’s daughter for helping with this article and providing the pictures. Oh, and for bringing the cats to our house too!

My daughter had a security job guarding a storage lot for one of the big three automakers. Under the rows and rows of shiny new vehicles protected by a security team and a 7000 volt electric fence, there was an entirely different world. Cats. Yes, cats. Their world was nothing like the protective world of the beautiful cars and trucks. Their world was in the gravel. Instead of the protection of the security team, they were threatened by coyotes and huge rats. Cat life was very dangerous. The cars were carefully guarded and accounted for. Great care was used to get them to their destination. The cats were a different story. They were on their own. Them against the world. And that world was deadly.

The Lord showed me a lot of lessons from the cats. Lessons that were good, yet unfortunate, examples of how the cats’ lives were similar to the life of an abuse survivor.

Enter my animal loving daughter. Somehow those mangy cats stole her heart. I remember the night she brought a bag of cat food to work because she noticed that they were skin and bones. The cats noticed the food. They were desperate. A cat’s gotta eat. Initially they didn’t want anything to do with the benevolent being that brought them the food. When they noticed her, they would run. She kept reaching out to them. They kept running. After about a week, the fluffy one decided to stop running. It let this benevolent creature touch it. Unlike the coyotes and rats, this being’s touch was comforting. It was safe at a distance.

The skinny cat thought differently. Its size suggested that life in the same gravel world was somehow more difficult for it than life for fluffy cat. It needed the food that the benevolent creature provided, but it had zero trust that this creature would be any different than the other creatures that tormented it. At one point my daughter tried to reach out to it. It freaked out and ran away. Unfortunately, while it was running from her it caught one of its paws in a fence and got hurt. In skinny cat’s mind, the creature caused the injury. The heart of the benevolent creature had compassion knowing that life would be so much better for skinny cat if he would just stop running and let her help him. There were other cats in the yard, but they stayed even further away than skinny cat.

My daughter kept feeding them – reaching out to them – to gain their trust. After two weeks, they trusted the benevolent creature enough to enter her guard shack. The door closed behind them and they were in her domain. It was different from the gravel. There was heat. It was warm. My daughter kept caring for them, feeding them. Reaching out to them. Fluffy cat dared to let her hold him. Skinny cat kept resisting. I kinda wonder if skinny cat was watching to see if fluffy cat’s trust would lead to his demise. Skinny cat learned from sad experience that trust is dangerous.

A new day came along. My daughter heard that management was changing things up at the storage lot. Within a few days they would be taking all the cats to an animal shelter. A kill shelter. The benevolent creature knew that she had to remove the cats from their familiar gravel world and take them to a strange new place, or they would die. Kinda hard to explain that to a cat. In order to take them out of gravel world, she had to place them in a cage. I wonder if they felt betrayed in that cage. After all they trusted her and now they felt trapped. And then she brought them to a strange new world of carpet, colorful walls, lights, and people. It must have been overwhelming. They knew gravel world with the occasional venture into the guard shack. Then the cage. And now this. It must have been sensory overload. Did they exercise a tragic error of judgment when they began to trust the benevolent creature?

There were other cats my daughter was willing to rescue along with them, but they ran. Leaving the familiarity of gravel world with an unfamiliar benevolent creature was too much of a risk for them to take. Their lack of trust would later prove fatal.

I remember the first night that my daughter brought fluffy cat and skinny cat home. She led my wife and me to our downstairs bathroom where she was keeping them safe from the two dogs and another feral cat we had brought into our home several years ago. I knew the Lord had something to show me, so I just sat in the background of the room and watched my wife and daughter try to interact with the cats. The loss of gravel world and the newness of carpet world seemed to be too much for them. Fluffy cat wouldn’t let my daughter pet him anymore. We put two small bowls of milk out for the cats to drink. The fragile trust they had in the benevolent creature way back in gravel world seemed to be gone. Instead of the bright lights, warmth and milk of carpet world, they preferred to hide in the darkness under some shelves in our bathroom. They knew the parameters of gravel world. Carpet world is another story. And now there’s three benevolent creatures. Trusting one was hard enough. “Why did she bring other people here to mess with me?”

My wife and daughter didn’t want to overwhelm skinny cat and fluffy cat, so they decided to leave them alone for a while. I stayed behind. Hidden in the background. The second the door shut behind them, skinny cat and fluffy cat lunged for the milk. The benevolent creatures may be terrifying, but the truth is the cats needed the care that the benevolent creatures were trying to give them. They drank that milk up pretty fast.

Carpet world was safe, but it was unfamiliar, and trust in the benevolent creature wasn’t restored in a day. Even my daughter had to hold fluffy cat in a coat that first day lest she experience the terror of psycho kitty. My wife picked up skinny cat with another coat. Both cats were hissing at us. The benevolent creatures were patient. They just sat there holding and loving the terrified cats. They wanted the best for those cats. The cats just couldn’t figure that out.

Gradually, fluffy cat calmed down and let my daughter hold him again without a coat. Skinny cat held onto control. The benevolent creature had to continue using a coat to pick him up, but he was willing to sleep on the bed with her. As long as skinny cat was able to maintain some sense of control, he was okay. He just wasn’t fully convinced that the benevolent creature had his best interests in heart. Finally, as the week wore on and the benevolent creature found an adoption shelter, skinny cat stopped hissing and let my daughter hold him without the coat. Benevolent creatures are patient. They understand. They look beyond the hissing and see the wounded heart that needs love and restoration. That is their goal all along.

Another change. Another ride in a cage. Another loss of familiarity and fear of the new. This time carpet world was exchanged for metal cage world. Other loud, nervous animals. And new benevolent creatures. It turns out that one of the new benevolent creatures at the adoption shelter fell in love with fluffy cat and skinny cat and took them to her home. Cage world started off feeling cold and unloving. It turns out that it was actually a place of great love and compassion where the long-term solution was revealed. The new benevolent creature loved the cats as her own.

Sometimes God keeps things the same. Sometimes he changes things. He doesn’t usually ask our permission. Each time it is a new opportunity to learn the difficult task of trusting Him. He’s patient. He will wrap His coat around us and lovingly hold us while we hiss at Him. People that have never lived in gravel world won’t understand how its residents could have a hard time trusting a benevolent creature. Souls leaving gravel world can understand. Sometimes it was those we trusted – those we thought were benevolent creatures – who played the role of the coyotes and rats. Sometimes we’re afraid to leave gravel world. It is terrible. It is painful. But it’s all we understand. We don’t know how to live in carpet world. It’s hard for us to trust that cage world is only temporary and is actually a safe place while we are transitioning into another carpet world.

Brokenness is scary, but sometimes we prefer it to the unknown. The Lord understands this. There are times when He loves us enough to pick us up out of the familiar and carry us to a new place that we can’t comprehend. We might want to hide under a dark shelf, but He feeds us and teaches us how to live in a strange new place. Sometimes those He has placed in our lives move on. One familiar source of strength may transition elsewhere and be replaced by a new compassionate face. We have to learn to trust all over again. It is during those times that we have to look beyond the immediate and see Jesus Christ, the true Benevolent Creator, orchestrating our lives. He can preserve our lives in gravel world. And in time, restores our hearts in carpet world. He understands. He knows what it is like to be abused in gravel world. Jesus Christ conquered the sin and death of gravel world, and rose victoriously to deliver us.

 

But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed. - Isaiah 53:5 NKJV

© 2018 Reconciliation Ministries of Michigan, Inc. This article may be reproduced and distributed as long as no fee is charged and credit is given.

How Do I Talk to My LGBT Identified Relative this Christmas?

This article was written by Dan Hitz, Executive Director of Reconciliation Ministries, a member ministry of Restored Hope Network. Dan began his own journey out of homosexuality in 1984, and has served as ministry director since 2003. You can find more articles on sexual recovery and family dynamics in the archives section of our website.

Many of us are looking forward to getting together with our extended families as we celebrate the birth of our Savior and anticipate the New Year. Gathering with our families can be warm and rewarding for many of us. It can also be a source of anxiety for others. As Christians, we want our loved ones with us in eternity. We often see the bondage that many of our loved ones are in and we want to offer them the same hope of redemption that we have found in Christ. One of the questions I get the most often is, “How do I talk to my gay relative about Jesus?” The question may be motivated out of a love and genuine eternal concern for our relatives; however, the answer isn’t quite that easy. Nor will a fruitful conversation be had as quickly as we would like. Hopefully this article will provide some helpful tips on developing the type of relationship that might give you the ability to approach such an emotionally charged subject successfully. For ease of writing, I’ll use the example of talking to a gay nephew. The principles equally apply to anyone engaged in sinful activity, including an unmarried man and woman living together, although I rarely get asked about them. Homosexuality is a much more frequent focus.

The first question I usually ask when someone asks me how to talk to their gay-identified nephew about Jesus is, “What type of relationship do you have with him right now?” The deeper your present relationship with a loved one, the more likely that the person will let you into his life. If you haven’t talked to your nephew in several years, I would encourage you to prayerfully take the time to get to know him for who he is in the totality of his personhood. He may very well see homosexuality as a complete identity, fully enmeshed in every aspect of his life; but the reality is that who we are as children of God involves far more than who we are attracted to. If possible, take the time to learn more about what interests him, and spend time focusing on those topics instead of his sexuality. If you haven’t taken the time to build a sincere relationship with someone, don’t expect to be able to address a vulnerable topic about anything that someone holds dear to their heart and is ready to defend at all costs. A loving relationship can go a long way to build a bridge of understanding.

Another factor to consider is that the family Christmas party probably isn’t the time to have “the conversation” anyway. I love gathering with my extended family and catching up on their lives, but the details that we can share between Aunt Millie’s travel updates and watching Baby Billy’s first few steps usually aren’t that deep. The deep conversations are best kept for quiet, individual gatherings over coffee or dinner. That’s the time that we can share vulnerable details about our own lives. Yes, we will need to share from a place of our own vulnerability if we ever expect to build enough trust with someone to help him feel safe enough to share his own heart issues. No one wants to feel like a project. Your nephew will be able to tell if you’re talking to him because you want to fix him in order to relieve your own sense of Christian duty, or if you truly care about him and have his best interests at heart. That kind of relationship depth usually doesn’t happen in large groups of relatives building ginger bread houses or singing karaoke. Such activities don’t usually involve intimate conversations, but they can build relationship.

One of the irritants that the LGBT community has is that homosexuality and transgender issues often get singled out by the Christian community, while they ignore the unmarried man and woman who are having sex, or the single guy who is looking at pornography throughout the week. I can understand their irritation. If we as Christians ignore other types of sexual sin, but we focus on homosexuality, it will alienate those we are trying to reach in the LGBT community. We in the Christian community need to be consistent here. God created sexuality as a beautiful expression of love within the boundaries of marriage between one biologically born male and one biologically born female. Are we praying as diligently for heterosexual sinners as we are for homosexual ones? Are we maintaining Biblical sexual purity in our own lives? Those are very important questions as we pray for our LGBT identified loved ones.

Before you talk to your LGBT identified relative, take the time to understand what he or she is going through. There are a lot of good resources available to help you understand what someone who deals with LGBT issues experiences emotionally, physically and spiritually. It isn’t just a simple matter of stopping the behavior. LGBT issues are fruit issues on a tree with very deep root issues. Taking the time to educate yourself about the building blocks of the issues and the struggles that LGBT individuals go through will go a long way to deepen the relationship. You will likely hear some things coming from the heart of your nephew that are difficult to hear. You will hear many things that you don’t agree with. Don’t try to correct everything all at once, that will shut him down. Taking the time to hear his heart will go a long way to build trust and relationship. You can talk about different perspectives and doctrine later, after you have established relationship.

LGBT individuals who have grown up in the church have a variety of reactions to God. Many times strugglers have cried out to God night after night to change them, yet they wake up the next morning still attracted to the same sex. Sometimes this leads them to reject God altogether. They see Him as the One who declared homosexuality to be an abomination, made them gay, didn’t change them, and therefore must be setting them up for failure and damnation. Other times they decide that since God didn’t change them, He must be okay with their same-sex attraction and they revise their theology to embrace homosexuality. Blessed are those who come to the place of full surrender to God – those who say regardless of whether my sexual attractions ever change, I will submit my sexuality to God and live for Him. You can have a huge impact on that decision if you take the time to build relationship and understand their heart; even when it gets messy.

You can find excellent Biblical resources on homosexuality and transgender issues on the Pure Passion TV website at www.purepassion.us. Other great resources are available through Restored Hope Network (www.restoredhopenetwork.org) and the archives section of the Reconciliation Ministries website . Author Joe Dallas provides practical advice on how to respond when someone you love is gay in his book, When Homosexuality Hits Home. He has an excellent blog about sexuality on his website at www.joedallas.com. Dallas is my favorite author on Biblical sexuality. He is able to explain complex issues with an easy to understand writing style.

When the Lord does open the door for a deep conversation with your gay-identified nephew, it is critical that you speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). Even if you’ve taken the time to build trust and relationship with your nephew, this will still be a sensitive conversation to have. He will likely be waiting to hear the same condemning tones from you that he has heard through his own experiences, or at least condemned openly in the gay blogosphere. As you begin this conversation, make sure your nephew knows that you love him as he is, even if you disagree on theology. The families that have navigated through this difficult journey the best are those who chose to continue loving their LGBT-identified son or daughter unconditionally, while they continue to uphold their Biblical convictions.

Remember, both your nephew and his same-sex partner are eternal souls who need Jesus. Compromise doesn’t bring people to repentance. Loving your gay-identified nephew unconditionally and upholding Biblical convictions will be difficult at times. This may include not being able to honor a request from your nephew and his male partner to stay overnight in the same bedroom, or a request to attend a gay wedding; but if there has been an obvious display of Christ-like love, the relationship has the best chance of surviving the disappointments that will ultimately come as you uphold your Biblical convictions. Keep in mind that we are living for eternity. Your relationship will be challenging at times. Resist the temptation to compromise your Christian convictions at the expense of encouraging your LGBT identified loved one to come to true repentance. True love is doing what is best for another person in light of eternity, regardless of the personal consequences involved.

Your gay-identified nephew may push against your convictions at times. Sometimes he does it because he is disappointed and angry. Sometimes he does it to see if you’ll cave in and compromise. It is important that he sees that you are consistent and responding in love. You are offering him the best witness of God’s offer of redemption as he sees your faithfulness to God’s Word and your love towards him, even when it is difficult.

I realize there are some who will be reading this article and who realize that they have taken the wrong approach and alienated their nephew, niece, son or daughter. If that is the case, pray for an opportunity to sincerely apologize to him or her for your wrong attitude. You can ask for forgiveness, and the opportunity to start over. If the opportunity is granted, reconciliation will likely take a long time and you’ll experience turbulence as you go. Don’t give up. Trust that the Holy Spirit will be working on both of you as you continue walking in relationship with humility. If forgiveness isn’t granted, continue to love him as you have the opportunity and pray that the Lord will work in your hearts.

Above all else, pray consistently for your LGBT-identified relative. Remember, homosexuality and transgender issues are the fruit on a big tree with a huge root system. It will take the Holy Spirit to convict and do a deep work in your loved one’s heart. Pray that the Lord sends people to speak to your nephew that he can receive spiritual truth from. You might be too close to mom and dad to open up fully to, but you can pray that the Lord will send someone that he trusts that he can talk with. In the meantime, continue to pray, build relationship, and speak the truth in love as the Lord opens the door.

© 2017 Reconciliation Ministries of Michigan, Inc. This article may be reproduced and distributed as long as no fee is charged and credit is given.
Images used under license with www.shutterstock.com.

Support is Available

Healing Hearts is a confidential Christian support group for parents and families of those struggling with homosexuality and transgender issues.  The group meets on the second Sunday of each month and is open to anyone 18 and over who wants to learn how to love their LGBT-identified loved one without compromising their Christian convictions. The next meeting will be held at Renewal Church on Sunday, January 14th from 2:00 - 4:00 pm.  Renewal is located at 11174 East 13 Mile Road in Warren. For more information on upcoming meetings call Dan Hitz at 586.739.5114.

Contact our leaders for support…

Mike & Renee - 313-937-3422 - rcboyle@sbcglobal.net
Scott & Edie - 586-775-0504 - tabeaRD75@aol.com

Pornography: The False Escape

This article was written by a member of the Reconciliation Ministries Living Waters leadership team. They are a group of “wounded healers” who have fought their own battle with sexual and relational brokenness, and who have experienced the healing power of Jesus Christ. If you or someone you love is struggling with sexual sin, call Reconciliation Ministries at 586.739.5114 and let us walk with you to Jesus.

I never thought of porn use as a problem.  It was something that “didn’t hurt anyone” and was “safe”.  In High School it was normal for guys to talk about their favorites, which made it seem like everyone did it, like it was normal and natural.  What I didn’t know: I was using porn like a drug to keep me away from my emotions and distancing me from God.  As time went on it increasingly pushed me to isolation and made me feel more and more depressed, fueling a cycle I didn’t know about or understand.  Because I was so wrapped up in denial and isolation I didn’t think about how it would impact those around me either, and I never thought about my distant relationship with God.  Realizing porn use as a problem and even addiction was like lifting a heavy fog in front of me, dispelling all the lies I accepted as my truth.

For most of my life I grew up in an environment of neglect and a lack of responsibility.  My parents were both responsible adults, but they did not feel responsible for raising their kids well.  My parents were divorced when I was young and both neglected me, and while they were married there was a clear pattern of physical and verbal abuse.  After the divorce, I lived with my mother for most of the time and she had a very co-dependent relationship with me.  I was the man of the house, even though I wasn’t even a teen yet, and she would share whatever was on her mind, unloading her negative emotions on me.  She was very controlling and focused on perfection, which drove me to be uninterested in doing anything.  During High School I remember crying out for help and my mother took me to be tested for Bi-Polar disorder.  I was not diagnosed with any disorders, but through the discussion the therapist found some issues and suggested some books on parenting and some parenting tweaks.  My mother lied and said she already read them and was a great parent.  Any problem I had came across as an attack on her parenting and she would go into denial and shut me out, often crying in an attempt to manipulate me.  My father didn’t really want to be a father. He only agreed to pick me up every other weekend because it would reduce the child-support he had to pay. He continued to complain about the payments, my mother, and the annoyance of having to pick me up until I was a legal adult.  He was uninterested in being a dad for the most part, and years later told me he didn’t have the time to be a dad so he would try to just be a decent friend to get me on his side.  If I had a question, I would be told to ask the other parent. Since I never got any answers, I stopped asking the questions and tried to figure things out on my own.  Once I realized I couldn’t reach perfection I stopped trying in school. I felt unwanted, and even worse, like a burden wherever I was.  I never felt like I had a home, I felt like I was just visiting someone.

Spiritually my mother believed in going to church when she felt guilty enough, and my father created his own religion focused on himself.  Needless to say, my parents didn’t care about my relationship with God and actually instilled a strong sense of skepticism in me. I felt like God was only there to punish me and rid me with guilt, or that God wasn’t real at all.  Despite my confusing outlook on God, there were also times when I felt like God was there for me, even if I didn’t understand it or accept it.  Thankfully he shielded me from drugs and getting into trouble as a youth.  It wasn’t until late in High School that I started to regularly go to church, when my now wife demanded I go to church with her if we were to continue dating.  It wasn’t until a few years later that I could actually call myself a Christian, working through the doubt and skepticism, and God is still working in me.

As time went on I felt more and more alone and turned to escape mechanisms to get away from my negative feelings.  I turned to porn and videogames mostly, jumping into fantasy worlds where I was the most important person and felt I had control.  My father introduced me to videogames as a way to connect, and we had little else to talk about.  I didn’t think about the negative impact porn had in my life until I married my wife.  I expected marriage to take away all the problems in my life.  I wouldn’t have to deal with my parents at all if I didn’t want to, and I’d have real and right intimacy with my wife.  I fully expected the desire to watch porn to disappear, but it got worse.  My wife and I were not connecting as well as I thought; we had more stresses as we were living together for the first time and were both busy figuring out our lives together.  I doubled down and watched more porn, shut out my wife, and reinforced my addiction through that negative cycle. 

My wife and I had pretty bad fights every week for the next seven months, and at one point I just broke and explained what was going on.  She was incredibly hurt and filed for divorce, which I agreed was not ridiculous or undeserved.  She said I had six months to show major improvement or she would continue with the divorce, which was a great show of grace to me.  The next six months we fought almost every day in the worst possible way.  I found a therapy-based program that gave me some tools to fight my temptations.  The program was useful in day-to-day living, but I felt something was missing.  It focused on tools and tricks to get through life and involved prayer, but made it very clear healing was not an option.  Our leader left, a new draconian leader took over with some ideas and outlooks that were not uplifting and I could not agree on, and the group had changed dramatically. I decided to look elsewhere.  My wife had seen someone from Reconciliation Ministries speak in person at a High School ministry event through our church and suggested I give the ministry a call.  I came to Living Waters shortly after and immediately saw the difference.  At first it was challenging, but it became apparent Living Waters was a place where I could begin to find real healing and connect with God.  I began to learn how to surrender to God and begin understanding where the healing would be happening.  Living Waters has changed my life.  It goes beyond a therapy regimen and allows for real healing.  My relationship with God has never been better or more important in my life.  My marriage can finally be described as happy and we have never been closer.  My personal relationships have improved, I feel more motivated in my work, and I have finally have a feeling of contentment in life in God’s plan.  Now I can’t imagine life without Living Waters. 

The process has not been comfortable.  Coming clean to my wife was not comfortable. Learning about myself was not comfortable. Continually facing my fears and doubts instead of running and hiding is not comfortable. Surrendering to God is not comfortable.  Despite no part of the process being comfortable, it is worth it.  Being able to walk free, without the haze of lies and denial, is something that is better than I could imagine.  No longer feeling like I have a terrible secret makes it so much easier to look people in the eyes and feel my own self-worth.  Knowing I have a God on my side and learning the truth about how God feels about me has given me peace I couldn’t believe before this process.  One of the most surprising gains is when I stopped focusing only on my own needs. I could reach out in community with others and finally feel like I don’t have to be isolated and alone.  I would suggest Living Waters to everyone, since I feel everyone needs to know about themselves more deeply. If you think porn use isn’t a problem like drugs or alcohol, you really need Living Waters.  It’s unlike anything I have done before and helped me better my relationship with my God and understand myself. 

© 2017 Reconciliation Ministries of Michigan, Inc. This article may be reproduced and distributed as long as no fee is charged and credit is given.

First image by Gilles Lambert on www.unsplash.com. Second image by Ryan Franco on www.unsplash.com.

Lives Are Being Changed

Dear Friends,

Used under license with www.shutterstock.com

As we look ahead to our next session of Living Waters, we are rejoicing in what the Lord has done through our first Mending the Soul group. It was amazing to see the participants open their hearts week after week and receive deep healing. Some of the participants would like to share how the group has helped them…

I was able to identify pain in my life and found the source or root of it. I can understand now how abuse dictates emotions and mindsets. I have learned how to let go and allow God to heal. – A female survivor.

 I could talk about the abuse I experienced, the addiction I developed, and all the fallout and consequences; without having to be worried about judgement or rejection. – A male survivor.

I can truly say that though I have a ways to go as far as healing, I am not the same person I was when I entered this group. I have regained my voice, set boundaries, gained strength in many ways, and found hope for healing in God. This group has truly been a blessing. – A female survivor.

You can change the life of an abuse survivor by becoming a member of the Reconciliation Ministries Support Team. Your prayers and financial support can help those who have been ravaged by sin and abuse. Donations can be made securely online by clicking here. If you’re already a member of our support team, we would like to thank you for making an eternal difference in the lives of others. Your partnership matters.

Registration is now open for our next session of Living Waters. If you or someone you care about is struggling with sexual sin and relationship difficulties, call Reconciliation Ministries at 586.739.5114 and find out how Living Waters can help. Discounts are available for early registration, and we have lowered the tuition rate for new participants by 20%. You can read testimonies from the last session of Living Waters in this newsletter.

Your brother in Christ,

Dan

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Lives Are Changed through the Living Waters Program. 

Living Waters is a Christ-centered discipleship/ministry program for men and women seeking healing in areas of sexual and relational brokenness; including pornography addiction, codependency, sexual addiction, homosexuality, sexual ambivalence, childhood sexual abuse, transgender issues, and difficulty in establishing and sustaining healthy relationships.  Our next program is starting soon.

Here are some powerful testimonies from participants who had their lives changed through the power of Jesus Christ in the Living Waters program. They are used with the permission of the participants.

Living Waters saved my marriage. - A female participant.

I am closer to God as a result of Living Waters. I see Him more clearly in my past, anticipate Him more certainly in my future, and follow Him more peacefully in the now. - A male participant.

Through Living Waters I learned that I am a survivor, not a victim. - A female participant.

When I first came to Living Waters, I was a complete mess. I struggled in my marriage. I felt like a terrible mother. I had major trust issues. I knew that my problems stemmed from being repeatedly molested by my cousin from the ages of three to five. I just could not stop my brokenness from ruining my life. I learned a lot of tools here at Living Waters. And God has used Living Waters to change me into a better wife and mother. I am no longer controlled by my brokenness. Living Waters saved my marriage. - A female participant.

Living Waters has helped me to become a more honest person – with God and others. I am less afraid of failure and weakness than I was before Living Waters began. I am more willing to admit my weakness, doubts, and my need for help to God and others. God has begun a much needed work of humility through this program. - A male participant.

For most of my life I grew up in an environment of neglect and a lack of responsibility. When my parents were married, there was a clear pattern of physical and verbal abuse. After they divorced, my mother was very controlling and focused on perfection. This led me to be uninterested in doing well in anything. My father didn’t really want to be a father, but he agreed to pick me up every other weekend because it would reduce the child-support he had to pay. He was uninterested in being a dad for the most part.

As time went on I felt more and more alone and turned to escape mechanisms to get away from my negative feelings. I turned to porn and video games mostly, jumping into fantasy worlds where I was the most important person and could have control. I didn’t think about the negative impact porn had on my life until I married my wife in 2013. I expected marriage to take away all the problems. I fully expected that the desire to watch porn would disappear. It got worse. My wife and I had pretty bad fights every week for the next seven months, and at one point I just broke and explained what was going on. She was incredibly hurt and filed for divorce. She said I had six months to show a major improvement or she would go through with the divorce. We fought almost every day in the worst possible way. I went to a therapy-based program that gave me some tools to fight my temptations, but something was missing.

I decided to come to Living Waters after my wife heard one of the leaders speak at my church. At first it was challenging, but it became apparent that Living Waters was a place where I could begin to find real healing and connect with God. I began to learn how to surrender and begin to heal. Living Waters changed my life. It goes beyond a therapy regimen and allows for real healing. My relationship with God has never been better or more important in my life. My marriage can finally be described as “happy” and we have never been closer. My personal relationships have improved. I feel more motivated in my work, and I have finally have a feeling of contentment in life and in God’s plan. - A male participant.

I came into Living Waters with deep pain in my heart, a heart that had hardened towards men and I didn’t want to live in this hurtful, deceitful and sinful world. I wanted to die and take the easy way out. I wanted peace – no more pain and abuse. No tears. No sorrow. No more hurting. Through the deep healing lessons I have to admit that my heart is softening some to men. I don’t immediately label all men as bad. I haven’t thought of wanting to die in a while. I wake up every morning and say, “Good morning, Lord”. I have not gotten to the point that I love living – but I have gotten out of my first thoughts of, “I want to die.” I am on a new journey with peace growing in my heart towards men.

I also started out the first week in Living Waters saying, “I don’t know if this program is for me.” Now, 24 weeks later, I believe everyone needs to take this program for inner healing and to understand where the pain comes from. Ultimately, to get to know the Great Healer, Jesus. I deeply long to be in the arms of my Lord – but I think I’ll stick around this alien world and do the work and calling that God created me to be and to do until He calls me home. - A female participant.

If you or someone you love is struggling with sexual or relational difficulties, there is hope and healing through the power of Jesus Christ.  Call us and ask about attending the next Living Waters program. (586) 739-5114

© Reconciliation Ministries 2017.  This article may be reproduced and distributed as long as credit is given and no fee is charged.

Overcoming Isolation

This article contains information included in Chapter Seven, “Isolation”, from Mending the Soul Workbook for Men and Women, Second Edition, by Celestia G. Tracy, published by Mending the Soul Ministries, Inc., Phoenix, Arizona in 2015. The article will explore the root causes of isolation common to abuse survivors, and ways the survivor can learn to overcome isolation and develop healthy relationships. It was written by Dan Hitz, director of Reconciliation Ministries of Michigan, Inc. More articles on abuse recovery are available at www.recmin.org/newsletter-archives/.

Photo by Mike Wilson on www.unsplash.com.

From the very beginning of Scripture we see that “It is not good for man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). Even though Adam walked with God in the cool of the day, God still created another human for Adam to share life with. It is interesting to note that God places such an importance on fellowship that He created another human for Adam even though He knew that both humans were imperfect. God knew beforehand that the weight of Adam and Eve’s sin would require the sacrificial death of His own Son. God also knew that His imperfect creation would walk out His plan of salvation together and overcome sin. Although we will all be wounded by humans at some point in our lives, God’s restoration empowers us to receiving healing from humans. Love and fellowship was so important to Jesus that He issued a new commandment to His disciples to love one another, and show the world that they are His disciples through that love (John 13:34-36).

Since living together in unity is so important to God, it is no wonder that the enemy of our souls attacks it with such venom. We who have survived the devastating effects of abuse are well aware of the pain and dangers of living life connected to others. Although we are created for love and fellowship, many of us would rather hide in the darkness of isolation than risk vulnerability in relationship. We may not have consciously decided to build huge walls around our hearts, but many of us have constructed emotional walls so thick they rival medieval castles. We may be forced to interact with others on occasion, but we are secretly bound and determined to “never let anyone get close enough to hurt us again”. Even though our childhood abusers may be long gone, the emotional walls remain and hamper us well into our adulthood.

The effect of these walls was made real to me just a few weeks ago when I attended an extended family reunion. It included first and second cousins and their kids. I was sexually abused by my mother while I was growing up, and this was my mom’s side of the family. She had two sisters who also had their share of emotional challenges, and so did their children. As I stood back and watched their interaction, I noticed two things. First, some actually seemed to have adapted well and were coping better than others. They had good marriages and steady jobs. Many others seemed to struggle with multiple marriages, emotional challenges, and had a hard time making ends meet. Others were absent from the gathering due to family squabbles or emotional distress. The emotional weaknesses on my mother’s side of the family have truly taken their toll on many.

The second thing I noticed is that although many of my relatives present had their share of problems, a good number of them seemed to have the type of relationships that take years and a lot of time to develop. As I stood back watching their interaction, I got the impression that they didn’t just see each other for weddings and funerals. They got together for dinners and family events. I didn’t have the same type of relationship with my relatives – even my siblings – that many of them seemed to have with each other. I gained a clearer realization of my own reaction and the effects of abuse – a new understanding of my own deep retreat into emotional isolation. I was rather struck at the contrast of the “little Danny” who played so freely with his cousins during the family reunions my aunt  would have almost 50 years ago.  He was much different from the guy who stood off to the side in 2017 while the other cousins grouped up for pictures. In my later high school and college years, I became the “lost child” and retreated deep into the background of life. I left the area as soon as college afforded me the ability to do so, and stayed away as much as I could.

I don’t think my story is much different from many of you who have grown up with chronic abuse. No matter what type of abuse we suffer – sexual, physical, emotional, neglect, or spiritual – the effects are pretty much the same. In the past few months we looked at some of these effects; false guilt and shame, lack of initiative, dysfunctional family dynamics, and a wide variety of sexual brokenness. This month we’ll look at the issue of isolation, and the importance of overcoming it as we walk towards becoming the person that Jesus created us to be.

In the Mending the Soul Workbook for Men and Women, Celestia Tracy identifies three primary root issues as the foundation for isolation – the belief that I am shameful, the belief that I am shattered beyond repair, and the belief that we can trust no one and no one can trust me. Replacing each of these broken beliefs with the truth, is critical to learning to walk out of the emotional hiding place of isolation and developing healthy relationships in the Body of Christ. If you find yourself simultaneously craving healthy relationships and fearing them, you are not alone. You are experiencing what many abuse survivors live with every day. This is where we learn to trust the Lord to teach us how to walk past the fear and develop healthy friendships.

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I am shameful. – Toxic shame stems from believe that what we’ve done, or what’s been done to us, was so disgusting that no one could ever love us. It is a belief that we – not only our actions – are more than bad; we are inherently despicable. Abused children often take on the false responsibility for the abuse as a means of trying to make sense of it all. “If I’m such a horrible little boy, it makes sense for my father to beat me.” – or – “I’m such a creepy little pervert, it makes sense for my mother to do these things to me.” The sense of helplessness that comes when we admit that we didn’t cause the abuse is far too much for most victims to bear. Assuming that we have caused our abuse also gives us the false hope that we can be perfect enough to stop the abuse. This thinking is futile. Children don’t have the resources to stop the abuse. In order to overcome toxic shame, we must place the responsibility for the abuse squarely on the shoulders of our abuser to whom it belongs. Survivors need to reckon with the realty that the abuse was beyond their control and that they were actually helpless back in the day to stop the abuse. The good news is that you are not helpless anymore. You don’t have to be isolated anymore. You can reach out to safe people for help.

I am shattered beyond repair. – Tracy points out that God intended our needs to be met by safe, loving parents and other caregivers. Abuse shatters our sense of safety and trust. No longer is the world a safe place where my needs are taken care of and adults will teach me how to navigate through life. The world becomes a scary place of hopelessness and despair. This can cause us to emotionally short circuit and fall into helplessness, or to develop an “it’s me against the world” mentality. Either extreme is unhealthy and causes us to continue living out of our shattered heart. Broken hearts, with broken motivations, produce broken results that only seem to confirm our brokenness. Healing begins when we admit and accept the terrible things that have happened to us, reach out for help, and learn to grow beyond the devastation. You can learn to live life beyond the borders of your brokenness.

I can’t trust anyone and no one can trust me. – Abuse not only shatters our hearts, but it often leads us to draw the conclusion that NO ONE CAN BE TRUSTED! A boy abused by his mother may reach the conclusion that all women are dangerous. A young girl unprotected by her mother who willing allowed her step-father to abuse her may conclude that both genders are bad. No one is safe.

It’s easy to understand why abuse survivors may have a tough time trusting others, but why would they have a tough time trusting themselves? There’s actually some very simple reasons why abuse survivors have a hard time trusting themselves. Remember, we often blame ourselves for the abuse. Perpetrators are experts at manipulation and the grooming process. It’s common for survivors to ask, “How could I have been so stupid as to trust…” We’ve also assumed the false guilt for the abuse in order to force it to make sense; so therefore, we have a hard time trusting ourselves not to do something again that lets others abuse us.

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A more devastating reason that survivors have a hard time trusting themselves is that hurt people, hurt people. Many survivors have responded to the sinful abuse perpetrated against them by sinning against others. A young child sexually abused by a step-parent, may act out the same actions against a younger, more vulnerable cousin. A boy beaten by his father may take out his anger on a younger boy in the neighborhood. This “confirms” that we are just as much an insidious beast as the person who abused us. Yes, a survivor who has acted out on others must take personal responsibility for his own sinful actions, but he can also give himself the grace to realize that he was acting out of his own pain. If a survivor hasn’t acted out sinfully against another person, he has usually acted out sinfully with another person or on his own. Sexual promiscuity, pornography addiction, and substance abuse are common ways survivors try to numb the pain of their own abuse.

The answer for our shattered lives – whether shattered by the sins against us, or by the sins we’ve committed – is the cross of Jesus Christ. Not only did Jesus pay the penalty for the sins we’ve committed, He provided for the healing of the wounds inflicted upon us by the sins of others. Isaiah 53 is a beautiful picture of the forgiveness and healing that Jesus provided for us through His death on the cross. He knew what it was like to suffer and be in pain emotionally and physically (53:3). He took our pain and suffering on Himself (53:4). He took the guilt of our sin on Himself (53:6). And He made a way for our own healing by the wounds that He personally suffered (53:5). Truly, Jesus can healing the brokenhearted and free those who are in an emotional prison (Luke 4:18).

Overcoming emotional isolation is a process. It involves some healthy risk taking. And… It involves clinging onto God for help while we learn to recognize who in our lives is safe, and who in our lives is not. Here are some practical steps to help you learn to walk out of your hiding place and learn to develop some healthy relationships. The steps don’t necessarily go in sequential order, nor do they follow a linear progression. You may find yourself revisiting some of these steps from time to time as God brings a deeper understanding of how abuse has affected you.

First and foremost, we need to ask God for help. This step is so basic that we often miss it. The Lord recognizes that He is asking you to do something that is way out of your comfort zone. He is willing to be the parent that you never had, and teach you how to develop healthy relationships. I have a recovery friend who says, “We are learning to do at 50 what we should have learned when we were twelve.” The good news is that God is happy to teach us.

Pray for the Lord to give you a godly mentor. As much as trusting another human to help you overcome isolation may feel like climbing to the top of the Empire State Building to help you overcome the fear of heights, you need the help of safe others in the Body of Christ. A good mentor will understand the challenges you face, and can help guide you through the process. Remember, you are dealing with human mentors here, and even the best Christian mentor will make mistakes from time to time. Don’t panic. This is your chance to ask the Lord to help you talk to that other person about the misunderstandings. Unlike your abuser, a mature mentor will listen to your feelings and help work through any challenges that may come. If you’re not sure where to find a mentor, start with the pastoral care department of your local church, or contact the leaders of a Christian recovery program.

Walking out of isolation is a process. It’s okay to take it slow. Healthy relationships take a long time to develop. Unhealthy connections can happen fast. Ask the Lord to help you grow into healthy relationships at a pace that you can handle. Rather than sharing your whole life story with someone you just met, learn to talk about the basics of life or even the church project that you happen to be working on together. As you share little parts of your heart, watch how the other person handles them. If he or she is faithful with your information, you can share a few more details. Not everyone will develop into a close, personal friend. That’s alright. It’s good to have close friends that you can share deeply with, and it’s good to have friends that you just go get ice cream with. The best friends can do both.

Examine your heart to see if there are any areas where you’ve isolated yourself from God. If we keep people at arm’s length, odds are there are areas of our hearts where we’re keeping God at arm’s length. We may trust Him for our salvation and ask him for provision, but are we willing to let Him into the areas of our hearts where we have deep wounds? That isn’t as easy to do when those we’ve trusted in the past have betrayed us. We need frequent reminders that God is not like our abuser. He is safe.

Examine your heart and identify issues that you need to repent of. Have you made inner vows like, “I’ll NEVER let anyone close enough to hurt me again!” – or – “I’ll NEVER be like my abusive mother!” Those vows may have been a reaction to the intense pain that we’ve endured, but they keep us trapped in the futility of human effort. Inner vows are often made for the right reasons; we need protection, or we don’t want to be like those who have hurt us. The problem with inner vows is that they are usually made out of the wrong motivation. They’re a kneejerk reaction to our pain. Instead of living bound by an inner vow, it is far better to acknowledge the pain and the offense against us. We can then ask the Lord to keep us safe and to help us live through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Observe the character of the people we are learning to interact with. This may be a bit tricky, because survivors can be hypersensitive to the frailties of others. Everyone carries around a bucket of good and a bucket of bad. As hard as we try to only pour our bucket of good on others, sometimes the bucket of bad splashes out. The important thing is how someone responds when their bucket of bad splashes on others. Do they admit their frailties and apologize, or do they blame others for their mistakes? Safe people acknowledge their errors, apologize, and make corrections.

Learn to trust your discernment. This is another tricky thing for survivors to do. We likely grew up sensing something was amiss in our families but were told that everything was okay. Maybe you were told that you were the problem and that the abuser was the good guy. This teaches us to detach from our discernment and allow others to trample our personal boundaries. It’s easy to become hypersensitive when we start learning to pay attention to our discernment, and we’ll likely make some mistakes. This is where a good mentor can help.

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You’re going to make mistakes. Don’t give up. Everyone makes mistakes as they learn new skills and take some appropriate risks to step out of their comfort zones. When you mess up; pray, talk to your mentor, and reset. The process gets easier over time. The great thing is that the process even gets more enjoyable over time, and you can develop some great friendships.

I’m still working on this process after many years of recovery. Although the family reunion reminded me that I still have a lot of work to do, I can honestly say that I’ve met some beautiful people along the way. These friends have blessed my heart in ways that words cannot express. They are dear friends who share a common vision of living for Jesus. These relationships are worth all of the struggles, awkwardness, and goof-ups I’ve faced through the years. If the Lord can empower me to walk out of isolation, He can do the same for you. There is a beautiful Body of Christ out there, and you are a wonderful part of it.

© 2017 Reconciliation Ministries of Michigan, Inc. This article may be reproduced and distributed as long as no fee is charged and credit is given.

Characteristics of an Abusive Family

This article is primarily a summary of Chapter Four, “Portrait of an Abusive Family”, from Mending the Soul: Understanding and Healing Abuse by Dr. Steven R. Tracy. This article will highlight the characteristics of abusive families identified by Tracy. Mending the Soul was published by Zondervan Publishing, Grand Rapids, Michigan in 2005. This summary was written by Dan Hitz, director of Reconciliation Ministries of Michigan, Inc. More articles on abuse recovery are available at www.recmin.org/newsletter-archives/.

Just as we learned in the article detailing the characteristics of individual abusers, abusive families tend to look just like other families in our neighborhoods, schools and churches when they are outside of the privacy of their own home. Unfortunately, the similarities can come to a grinding halt when they are behind the closed doors and curtains of their own home. Tracy describes this as the banality of evil – evil people don’t look evil, they look like everybody else” (workbook p. 90). This is the challenge for those of us who grew up in a dysfunctional family. I heard numerous times how nice my mother was from people who knew the healthy side of her.

It is amazing how often I hear from the men and women that I’m counseling how respected their abusive parent(s) were/are in the church and the community. This can leave survivors wondering, “What on earth is wrong with me?” It feeds the denial for those of us who have shut down huge portions of our own hearts and don’t want to believe that our parent really is abusive. One of the most important steps in the healing process is to recognize and admit that our families were abusive. We need to recognize the areas of dysfunction that we were influenced by in order to begin taking the steps of healing in those areas.

No families are perfect. No parents are perfect. In looking at the characteristics of abusive families, we are not talking about the “healthy enough” parent who makes an occasional mistake or handles a situation in a way that causes minor offenses. We’re talking about chronic, severe offenses that leave deep lasting scars in the hearts of those who are impacted by it. Tracy identifies 15 primary characteristics of abusive families in Chapter Four of Mending the Soul. These characteristics can also be found in unhealthy churches, organizations and social groups. We’ll take a brief look at each characteristic here.

The needs of the family members are expendable. God intended the needs of the children to be fulfilled by the parents and the needs of the parents to be fulfilled by other adults. In abusive families, the children are used to fulfill the needs of the parents while the needs of the children go unmet. Where there is favoritism, the needs of the kids seen as “lesser” can go unfulfilled while the “elevated” kids are daunted over.

Reality is difficult to discern. Being at home with our families should be the safest experience we can have. In abusive families, the place which is supposed to be the safest becomes the most dangerous. Children naturally want to believe that whatever their parents do is appropriate. We are taught to ignore our God given discernment and perceptions by abusive parents who tell us that the abuse is a normal “expression of love” or “deserved” because of our own inappropriate behavior.

The victim is made responsible. It is the responsibility of every adult to take care of the children that God has entrusted him or her to parent and provide for. Abusive parents push their own responsibilities onto the children. They may be expected to take care of the younger siblings and perform an unreasonable amount of tasks well beyond their years. Sometimes they are expected to fulfil the sexual desires of evil parents.

The family appearance is deceptive. We have already discussed the banality of evil – the thought that most abusive people and families look very respectable to those on the outside. Abusive people can go to great lengths to maintain a “perfect” outward appearance.

The truth is ignored. Members of a dysfunctional family may be so focused on maintaining their own sense of “peace and calm” that they ignore obvious signs that abuse is occurring. I’ve worked with abuse survivors whose history of abuse was so obvious that it is impossible for me to believe that that other parent had no clue that the abuse was occurring.

Family abusers use force. In some situations, abusive family members may use manipulation and grooming to gain the trust of their victims; however, the “tenderness” of the grooming process gives way to threats and force to ensure that the victim maintains the secrecy of the abuse. Other times the perpetrators begin the abuse with aggression. Because the victims feel helpless to stop the abuse, the amount of aggression may decrease over time and may fall away altogether. Learned helplessness is when a victim is actually strong enough to stop the abuse, but is convinced that the situation is hopeless and continues to comply. This explains why many victims fail to walk away from the abuse, or reach out for help, even when help is readily available.

There is no straightforward, healthy communication. Much of the communication in abusive families is intentionally confusing and manipulative. Abusers may hide behind words that have double meaning so they can quickly deny their ill intent. If they spoke clearly, the destructive motives of their heart would be evident to all.

The victim’s rational response is often futile. Abusers don’t respond to reason. Abusers aren’t interested in the truth. They are champions of denial (refusing to admit or acknowledge the truth), projection (attributing their own negative actions and motivations to others), and blame shifting (claiming their own negative behavior was the result of the victim’s actions). Abusers “twist realty” to match their world.

Power is used to exploit. In healthy families, power is used to protect and empower the vulnerable to reach their full potential. In abusive families, power is used to control and ensure that the weaker remain under the control of the dominant.

Abusive families are emotionally unstable. Victims often feel like they are “walking on eggshells”. An action that was perfectly acceptable yesterday may trigger a violent reaction today; therefore, life is unpredictable and one can never let down one’s guard. They may also find themselves having a wide range of feelings about their abuser who may be beating them one moment, and pretending to love them by sexually abusing them the next. Victims may recognize that abusive behavior is wrong, but find themselves liking the perceived favorable attention they are receiving.

The victim is shamed, blamed and demeaned. I’ve heard from many survivors that their abusers manipulated them with kindness before the sexual abuse, and then verbally assaulted them unmercifully after the abuse. Some are blamed for the assaults by the perpetrators and others who claim that the abuse wouldn’t have happened if they had better character, or that they specifically behaved in a way to provoke the abuse.

Family members are isolated and lack intimacy. Healthy families have nothing to hide. Dysfunctional families are afraid of being found out. It is common for perpetrators and those who enable them to pull their victims away from those who can identify unhealthy behavior. Since abusers are proficient at using the victim’s inner hopes and dreams against them, victims quickly learn to shut off their desires. Ironically, the perpetrators paint a picture where the world is unsafe and dangerous, and that they are the only ones the victims can trust.

 A strict code of silence is enacted. Abusive families follow a strict No Talk Rule. The perpetrators don’t want to be found out and clearly communicate that there will be dire consequences to anyone who tells others about the abuse.

Abusive families deny and distort healthy emotions. Children want the world to make sense. Most abuse victims believe that the abuse was their fault. Many were told so by their abusers. In order for an abusive world to make sense, survivors learn to embrace the idea that the abuse was their fault. This also gives victims a strange, false sense of control. Other victims were told that they were overreacting and/or scolded for having negative feelings about the abuse. Unfortunately, the deeper message is that they learn to distrust their healthy emotions. They either embrace dysfunctional emotions, or shut them off altogether.

The wrong ones are protected. Perpetrators want to prop up their abusive system and maintain a false, outward appearance. They use manipulation, intimidation and violence to achieve that goal. Those who accuse the victims are often shamed and blamed – even within the church. It is important to listen to the hearts of the survivors and pray for discernment to understand the truth of the situation.

Perhaps it was very difficult for you to read this article. If you can identify many of the traits listed above in your own family, don’t lose hope. Remember, the first step in fixing a problem is identifying that a problem actually exists. You can overcome the effects of childhood abuse. Start by reaching out for help to the pastoral care department of your local church. Reconciliation Ministries is also here to help. We offer individual counseling and support groups. If you or a loved one needs help, call us at 586.739.5114.

 © 2017 Reconciliation Ministries of Michigan, Inc. This article may be reproduced and distributed as long as no fee is charged and credit is given. Images used under license with www.shutterstock.com.

An Expanded Vision: More Lives to Reach

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Dear Friends,

Reconciliation Ministries began in 1984 with a focus on ministering specifically to those struggling with unwanted same-sex attraction. Through the years, our focus deepened to include heterosexual issues and the addition of our Living Waters program. We added licensed counseling to our services of pastoral care and prayer ministry, and recently began a new program for abuse recovery called Mending the Soul.

Over the past several months, you’ve been reading how the Lord has been working on our hearts to minister to those with a deeper level of brokenness than Reconciliation Ministries has ministered to in the past. This part of our journey actually began about three years ago, during a conversation with the Lord that took place over four Sunday worship services. I knew He was doing a deep work in my heart. I was shaking during the last worship service as He asked me to pray that He would send me to the bowels of hell on earth, so that we can save people from the bowels of hell for eternity.

We are excited to announce that the Lord has even more plans in store. As we continue to minister to all forms of sexual and relational brokenness in Metro Detroit, we also have an opportunity to touch souls in Ubon, Thailand. Plans are underway for me (Dan Hitz) to minister in Thailand from July through December of 2018. I have been invited to assist in the development of the Living Waters team in this remote region of Thailand, mentor men who are potential leadership team members, and minister to pastors and villagers in the surrounding areas. You can read more about the progression of this vision and calling on the inside of this newsletter.

Reconciliation Ministries will continue to serve the Body of Christ in Metro Detroit even as we extend our outreach to Ubon, Thailand. We would like to invite you to join us in bringing the transformational power of Jesus Christ to those who desperately need Him. You can become a valuable member of the Reconciliation Ministries Support Team through your generous financial partnership and your prayers for the ministry and the participants. No one can affect the lives that we are called to reach alone, but together through Christ we can reach thousands of people who need His healing touch. Please join our Support Team and help bring healing to those who are sexually broken and to those who have suffered the trauma of abuse. You can sign up with the form included in this newsletter, or online at our website at www.recmin.org.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at 586.739.5114 or DHitz@recmin.org.

Thank you for sharing this journey with us!

Dan Hitz, Director, Reconciliation Ministries of Michigan, Inc.

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An Expanded Vision: More Lives to Reach - Dan Hitz

Dan has been the director of Reconciliation Ministries since 2003. This article describes his journey from growing up with sexual abuse and emotional brokenness, to reaching out to others who are hurting and walking with them to Jesus. Dan shares his expanded vision to reach more lives for Christ and invites you to join him in the journey.

I stand in amazement as I ponder the vision the Lord has birthed in my heart to reach more lives with the healing power of Jesus Christ. None of us have the ability to do anything of any eternal value, yet together in Christ we can accomplish great things for Him. I wanted to share my journey from the depths of despair to where the Lord has brought me to now. I also want to invite you to share in the calling He has given. The calling to reach out to those who are bound by sexual sin and the trauma of abuse. You can have a part in seeing the transformational power of Jesus Christ set captives free and restore their lives. Everyone has a story. Everyone can have a testimony of God’s redemption and restoration. Your journey can bring hope to others.

I was the fifth child to a paranoid schizophrenic mother and an overwhelmed father. Before I entered kindergarten I was sexually abused by my mother. My heart was shattered in the process and I dealt with the abuse by trying to turn off my emotions. When I was in junior high school, the abuse started up again and grew progressively more aggressive. I was pretty emotionally and sexually messed up and began to struggle with homosexuality, emotional isolation and bulimia. I was in complete bondage to these things – my mind was constantly fixated on gay images and I couldn’t go more than three days without a food binge. I wanted to be dead, but I was afraid to kill myself.

I got saved a year after I graduated from college. The bulimia ended right away so I thought that the same-sex attraction issues would be gone too. I meant business with God. I was devastated when I realized that the sexual issues didn’t just go away. My heart and emotions were still pretty turned off at that point and I was afraid to let God access my heart. I stuck to the Christian disciplines and the Lord began to do a slow work of change. By His grace, I got married two years after salvation. Marriage doesn’t fix sexual issues, and I was pretty broken for a lot of years. After 14 years of trying to get God to fix me on my own terms, I finally surrendered to Him and admitted that everything I had tried to do to fix myself hadn’t worked. I asked Him to help me His way. Shortly after that I met Tom Cole, who directed Reconciliation Ministries before me. I went through some of our programs as a participant. I finally begin to find freedom from the compulsive homosexual thoughts that caused me to hate myself so much.

The Lord began to convict my heart. He told me that He had given me a glass of water to drink while I was dying of thirst in the wilderness, and He wanted me to give that same water to others. Knowing what it was like to be in such bondage to sexual sin and find freedom in Christ gave me a passion to see others set free.

I became the director of Reconciliation Ministries in 2003. It is a ministry that helps men, women, and adolescents overcome a wide variety of sexual sin and the pain of abuse. I am blessed to see God set people free. I’ve seen guys who spent so much time watching pornography that they lost their jobs and their families break free from sin. I’ve seen other guys who were bound by adultery and sexual addiction and about ready to lose their wives find freedom in Christ. I’ve seen marriages restored. I also seen women who thought the only value they had was to give men sex because that’s what their brothers and fathers taught them learn who they really are in Christ and stand in their true identity as daughters of the King. My heart burns with passion to see more and more people set free.

After a few years of working with people struggling with LGBT issues and heterosexual addictions, the Lord started working on my own abuse issues at a much deeper level. One of my favorite sections of Scripture  is  where  Jesus says  that He came to heal the broken  hearted. In  the original  language,  the phrase brokenhearted means shards of glass as if you broke a mirror. (You can see me during junior high in the picture on the left with my mother.) I began to realize that abuse shattered my own heart into many fragments and I still had a lot of healing to do. God continued to transform my heart more than I could ever imagine. He began to send many others who were fragmented by abuse and I saw their hearts come back to life.

Over the past three years, the Lord has been increasing my burden to reach people with a deeper level of brokenness than we’ve seen before. More people just like me have been fragmented by abuse. I’ve got an intense burden for people who have been wounded deeply by chronic abuse to the point where they can barely function and hold down a job. We’ve done a lot already to bring healing to people, we offer license counseling and individual prayer ministry, and a discipleship group called Living Waters. We’ve been able to bring sexual healing in Metro Detroit and so many other places including Southeast Asia, a federal prison, inner cities, and other people that you might interact with every day but have no idea how much they’re actually hurting on the inside. With God’s help we can do so much more. It’s time to expand the ministerial offerings that Reconciliation Ministries provides.

Dan and Marianne in Thailand, 2016.

Last November, my wife and I ministered in Ubon Thailand for two weeks. We helped a missionary who was starting a brand new Living Waters group there. It was a smaller group, but the level of brokenness was overwhelming. I saw people whose hearts were in fragments being restored by the mercy of Jesus Christ. I could relate to their journey. The whole experience stirred my heart deeply and the Lord spoke to me that He was going to raise up two, three, or four people in that room to touch thousands. We can help make that happen.

The trip to Thailand and all that the Lord has been showing us in past few years in the US compels us to expand the ministry to bring a deeper level of healing that we’ve seen in the past. Reconciliation Ministries just started a new twelve-week program for abuse survivors called Mending the Soul. Right now we have to charge a tuition so that we can pay our expenses, but I want to increase our funding so we can offer that program free of charge to abuse survivors who desperately need healing and can’t afford our tuition fees. Together we can reach out to chronic abuse survivors and to those who have been trafficked and offer them the healing that Jesus Christ died to give them.

Another door has opened up to allow us to return to Thailand for six months in 2018 to continue the work that we did last November with Living Waters. We can have a part in the Lord raising up those two, three or four people to reach thousands. We can do this in a way that strengthens our local ministry offerings and also allows us to bring an extension of our ministry to Thailand. In the US, you can find an AA group or a Celebrate Recovery group every night of the week. There’s nothing for people struggling in this part of Thailand. We can change that. We can share what we’ve learned here in the US and use it to raise up Thai nationals and equip them with healing tools to set captives free.

That’s our burden. To bring freedom to people struggling with LGBT issues and heterosexual addiction issues. To bring healing and restoration to people who have been shattered by years of terrible sexual abuse. To help men and women find freedom from sin and healing from trauma so that they can be the men and women that God created them to be. And we have the opportunity to do this right here in Metro Detroit, and half way around the world in Ubon Thailand. Please join our monthly support team and together we can bring the redemption and restoration of Jesus Christ to those who desperately need Him. You can join our financial support team by clicking here, and join our intercessory team by sending an email to DHitz@recmin.org.

© 2017 Reconciliation Ministries of Michigan, Inc. This article may be reproduced and distributed as long as no fee is charged and credit is given.